Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi: Who is the greatest? Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher disagree on Monday Night Football
Gary Neville made the case for Cristiano Ronaldo to be seen as the greatest player of all time but Jamie Carragher argued for Lionel Messi on Monday Night Football.
By Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, Monday 13 September 2021 23:39, UK
Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher disagree on whether Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi should be seen as the greatest player of all time.
Ronaldo's scoring return to the Premier League has sparked renewed debate about his standing in football history and Neville posed an intriguing question to help provide the answer on Monday Night Football.
"If you were a manager and you could pick any player in history to come off the bench at their peak to win you a game and you only had one substitution left, who would it be?
"It would be Cristiano Ronaldo," said Neville.
"It would absolutely be Cristiano Ronaldo.
"I looked at his goal breakdown. He can score with his left foot, his wrong foot. He can score with his right foot. He can score from distance. He is probably the best poacher now in world football.
"He can score penalties. And if you stick him in the box and hang it up there he will go and score with a header. He might even score with a free-kick.
"So if you think about who is the greatest player of all time, I do think he is the greatest football player who has ever lived. He is the player who could win me a football match in the most different ways. He is the most complete player."
That opinion will doubtless upset fans of Ronaldo's great rival but Neville elaborated on his explanation as to why his former team-mate is ahead of Messi.
"There is no doubt that Messi has scored an obscene amount of goals, he is a ridiculous player," added Neville.
"But Ronaldo, the three big differences are the headers, that Ronaldo has scored four or five times more, the wrong-footed goals, that Ronaldo has scored 30 or 40 per cent more, and he has scored more penalties.
"It just took me to the point where he is more complete.
"The international goals, the Champions League wins, in teams that were not as good as the teams that Messi played in, just takes me to the point where I think he is the greatest player of all time."
Jamie Carragher strongly disagreed.
"You are talking about the different types of goals," Carragher told Monday Night Football.
"It does not matter how a ball goes in the net. It does not matter if one is a header or a free-kick. Messi has a better goal record than Ronaldo.
"Messi is also a playmaker. Messi can run a game. Ronaldo cannot do that. Again, not a criticism. But there is no way in the world he is the greatest player of all time.
"You talk about who you would want coming off the bench. Messi has scored double the amount of goals coming off the bench. It is a ridiculous thing to say. It does not matter if Messi's goals all come with his left foot, the stats prove he has more chance of scoring.
"Two wonderful players. In terms of all the attributes, Ronaldo is a more complete player. He can do things that Messi can't in terms of his weaker foot and in the air.
"But Messi can take you to a place where you can't actually believe what you are seeing. What Ronaldo does is what other players can do, Messi can do things you have never seen before."
#CristianoRonaldo #LionelMessi #GaryNeville #JamieCarragher #MondayNightFootball
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